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Reed College construction plans announced

New community garden delayed

Reed College announces that it will break ground May first for four new dormitory buildings on the site of the former community garden on campus, each of which will accommodate about 30 students; the same date will see the groundbreaking on a new language house to compliment those already sited on the south side of the campus near the entrance.

Jennifer Bates, Reed College spokesperson, tells THE BEE that the college had hoped to start preparing the new community garden planned for the northwest corner of the campus, on what has been a parking not at S.E. 28th at Steele, but a D.E.Q. inspection revealed that this former gas station site, despite a decommissioning in the 1970's, still has 'significant levels of solvents' sixteen feet below the surface, and remediation is necessary.

Although the college has not ruled out using someplace else on campus for the new community garden, it is going forward with remediation of the parking lot site according to D.E.Q. specifications, so in any event, the opening of the new garden will be postponed.

Bates also reports that although the current sewer project in progress on Woodstock Boulevard in front of the college continues to cause access problems, the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services has promised that the work will pause, and that Woodstock will be open, on the dates immediately around the Reed graduation ceremonies in early May. The sewer work on Woodstock should be completed before June; it is related to the current Eastside Big Pipe sewer project.